Michael Milken: From junk bonds to junk food

Commentary: It takes a fat cat to know what’s wrong with America

By

AlLewis

Columnist

DENVER (MarketWatch) — In today’s column, I pardon Michael Milken.

Yes, the ex-con, disgraced junk-bond king, who is virtually synonymous with 1980s greed.

Milken sought and was denied pardons by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. With President Barack Obama winning a second term, it could be at least four more years before such controversial forgiveness can be considered again.

My pardon doesn’t carry the weight of a presidential pardon. It likely won’t stop others from writing headlines such as “Michael Milken is still seeking redemption.” But under the circumstances, it is all I can do.

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I heard Milken address 1,300 people at the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado’s annual men’s event in Denver last week. He was lauded as a pioneering financier, a health-sciences innovator, a visionary and a philanthropist. There was no mention of his guilty plea to six felonies in 1989 for securities violations, or the 22 months in federal prison that he served as a result.

Some people seemed to have forgotten about his past. I ran into my primary-care physician at the event, for instance, and he said he thought maybe the speaker was a different Michael Milken, not the one from the long-defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert.

I asked some rabbis whether it was kosher to have such a notorious white-collar criminal held up as an example at this somewhat religious affair. Like a gaggle of economists, their opinions varied.

Some pointed out that repentance and redemption are part of the Jewish faith.

One rabbi put it this way: A man who commits a sin against God must work that out with God. A man who commits a sin against men must work that out with men. And when a man’s sin is against society — or say, some vague class of junk-bond investors — the way to work that out is through public service.

Al Lewis (L) and Mike Milken

Milken’s public service has long been credited with transforming medical research and saving lives. His Santa Monica, Calif.,-based think tank, the Milken Institute, annually gathers some of the world’s most influential leaders to work on some of the planet’s most vexing problems.

After Milken fought prostate cancer in the 1990s, he threw enormous amounts of money and brain power at the disease. He did this, not only for himself, but for society. One beneficiary of this effort was none other than Rudy Giuliani, who prosecuted Milken when he was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. Giuliani lived on to support Milken’s request for presidential pardon.

How’s that for love your enemy?

Despite such good works, another rabbi I spoke with said the Jewish faith is also about integrity in business. “He should not have been given that stage,” the black-bearded sage told me. “Do you think he’d be up there if he’d been convicted of rape?”

White-collar crime continues to plague society. Milken is but another link in a long chain of Wall Street felons that more recently includes insider traders such as former hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam and former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta. Milken pleaded guilty to technical reporting violations, but did not plead guilty to insider trading as initially alleged in a 98-count indictment.

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